As you can see with this vote, elections do have consequences! Let’s not let them turn Pennsylvania into Wisconsin, no matter how many Koch-loving hacks we have in the state house: An attempt to pass a controversial amendment to a bill that would restrict union dues collection from state and school employees’ paychecks narrowly failed […]

So, Utah decided to just give the homeless places to live. The results are what anyone with sense, or who has followed the topic would expect: Utah’s Housing First program cost between $10,000 and $12,000 per person, about half of the $20,000 it cost to treat and care for homeless people on the street. Imagine [...]

That’s what it’s all about, isn’t it? Those lady voters, and by this, oh best beloveds, he means the former Clintonistas who were royally screwed by Obama last time, they’re too genteel for all the aggressive behavior that Mitt displayed last night? Oh, my, I think they might have the vapors. They’re delicate, fragile flowers and unfit for such improprieties. It’s not decent! We shall whip them into a frenzy of condemnation. We shall use their more civilized nature to reign Romney in. He won’t be allowed to do that next time, nosiree.

Fuck that shit. No one cared about their feelings in 2008 when they were called every nasty thing in the book and Obama trolls stomped on their necks with big hobnailed boots while singing in the rain. Hell no, back then, the Clintonistas, educated and self-taught, professional and hourly employee, young and old, were tossed into the pile of stupid working class, menopausal, racist idiots. They were the dirt on Obama’s shoulder. He had 99 problems but a bitch ain’t one. His speech writers grasped breasts and stuck beer bottles up his opponent’s nose. They were locked out of caucus sites, harassed and screamed at and called names even I have a problem typing out. Their votes were trashed and they were told to get in line because they had nowhere else to go. Remember? Because WE do.

They wanted nothing more than to work Obama and his assholes over themselves. But you know, with it being all illegal and stuff, they were more than happy to see Mitt do it by proxy. Oh sure, some of them may get all dainty and regret that it looked brutal but secretly, they’re delighted. Maybe Mitt will govern like an asskicker, maybe he won’t. But as far as the ladies are concerned, he can’t do a whole lot worse than Obama has and if his goal was to motivate these women who Obama has all but written off, then I think it might have gotten their attention. Let’s face it, Obama had permanently alienated these women and was never going to get their votes. He just needs to prevent Romney from getting them. Suddenly, we’re relevant.

It doesn’t mean they’re all going to run out and vote for Mitt in November. Some of us haven’t let our anger get the better of our senses. But if Romney went after Obama last night aggressively, and from his body language, it looked more assertive than aggressive, then indignant moralizing about it today just looks like Obama can’t take it. Either that or he doesn’t like blue collar women voters any more than Republicans like African Americans in Philadelphia. One party tries to use the law to keep their undesirables from voting against them at the polls, the other uses social conditioning, psychological manipulation and group dynamics to keep their undesirables from going to the polls to vote against them.

But nobody’s fooled. Well, after this post, no one will be fooled.

Addendum: It just occurred to me that until this year, no one had ever really gone for Obama’s jugular in a debate. In 2008, moderators tiptoed around Obama and everyone went out of their way to self-censor everything they said lest they be accused of being racist. So, Obama might have gone into that debate expecting the same deference and Mitt blindsided him.

35 Responses

{{shiver}} ass kicking. THAT’s why I didn’t really mind the debate as much as I feared. … Except that bit about making everyone under 60 sweat about the future of Social Security.. And they BOTH agreed that was VERY important!

yeah, they’re both going to incite generational warfare to break the social compact. But it was a bit cathartic, wasn’t it? I was too stunned at first to take it all in but then, it was like, yeah, he deserved that.

CEOs have given both candidates their marching orders for next term. There is to be a Grand Bargain which will combine tax increases with benefit cuts and yes, social security and Medicare are on the table. The expectation among the elites is that avoiding the fiscal cliff will reduce business uncertainty and that will boost the economy. And the plan is to frack away. They hope to dislodge the oil bottleneck by fracking to increase domestically produced oil and lower the price. That’s the plan.

If you’re a property owner in a fracking area and have a Neighborhood Committee researching, understanding and negotiating the lease, regulations and royalties on your agreement, monitor the development of that business in your community while everybody else goes under anyway, what difference does it make? We are decent citizens and have dispensed with the name-calling of the “feauxgressives” who’ve stabbed us in the back consistently, and get into serious discussions of “FORWARD” with our resources. If you lose the land you fought to preserve for your descendants to the spiraling taxes caused by Union-backed idiots who get elected despite knowing NOTHING about budgets, who award no-bid contracts and squander taxpayer resources on projects that never get finished until costs quadruple, why should YOU worry about the dimwits who just bitch and pound their hooves when they aren’t serious about either business OR conservation except to serve as useful idiots for those afore-mentioned politicians.

Very true. I was for Hillary, voted for McCain/Palin and loved seeing Romney kick Obama’s ass last night. I will be voting for Romney this time. Then I hope the Democrat party goes back to it’s roots so I can once again be an Independent who votes mostly Dem.

I wouldn’t do it. I’m going third party. They only way you’re going to drag the Democrats back to represent their constituents is if enough of us vote to the left of the party. You don’t even have to be a Birkenstock wearing, Prius driving, dogmatic treehugger. All you need to do is go in the correct direction. Voting for Romney will only make the Democrats go further right.

The thing is I am an Independent and always have been. I think both parties are corrupt and sell out to multi national corporations. I almost always voted for Dems but I am fine voting Republican. I think Romney is clearly the least corrupt and moral of the major party choices and at this point Republicans are less corrupt than Democrats. But I respect the idea of real Dems voting to the left of Obama. I want you all to take your party back so I can have some real choices.

Spitzer is a knowledgeable politico who owned up, (as did his successor and his successor’s wife and lord knows how many others) to failing to filter through the fact that the Hookers of New York, while they may be among the top income “earners” in the Empire State, are hookers, nevertheless, and should NOT be on his fundraising “A List.” Hillary lost a solid supporter when he left the NYC “Super Delegation” Too bad they didn’t ditch Charlie Rangle.

Heh, heh – talk about fainting couch! I read some were blaming the Denver altitude for Obama’s poor performance. That and his staff for not thinking that evil Romney thrives in rarefied air while Obama doesn’t

Obama seemed chipper enough in Denver in 2008. The altitude didn’t bother him then.
I’ve been to Denver and hardly noticed the change in altitude and I live at sea level in NJ.
Good point about Romney not being affected. Maybe he did secret physical conditioning with a trainer in some kind of low oxygen chamber. It’s the kind of thing evil people do.

Hmm. I didn’t see it quite that way. I don’t like being an unwilling participant of “Let’s you and him fight,” when I hoped for a debate. I absolutely agree with what you said about Obama’s behavior in 2008. However, I don’t like being forced to watch a lying bully recapitulate the idea that this is acceptable debate behavior just because I have an interest in our election. Its not what it does to Obama, its what it does to me.

Like I said, I watched it with the sound off. But Mitt didn’t look aggressive to me. He looked animated, energetic and assertive. In no way did he come off mean or belligerent. He wasn’t crowding Obama’s space. He was looking at Obama in the face while Obama was speaking. I don’t think that was aggressive. Now, you might say that the sound makes a difference but I came to the same conclusions as the people who listened as to who won or lost so I don’t think I missed anything.
FWIW, I don’t think Obama went to the debate expecting a fight. No indeed. The debates in 2008 had moderators who were so gentle to him and he used the accusation of racism to make his opponents treat him with the utmost deference lest his operatives flayed them for being disrespectful.
But it’s four years later and he’s not historic anymore. Now he really is the post racial president. He’s had the job and he’s going to get treated differently.
I think it’s a perspective thing.

The debates went into decay when they were taken away from the League of Women Voters. I remember the 2 parties co-conspired to “fire” the League of Women Voters from hosting and moderating any more of the PrezRunner TV debates. I don’t remember when that happened. I dimly remember a so-called “Democratic” party chairman named Kirk holding up his half of the bipartisan conspiracy against the League of Women Voters debates.

you know doubt recall that hillary shellacked obama in the 2008 debates. and she would have de-bagged mutt romney last night. in any case, last night’s farce was a “debate” between an empty head and an empty chair. some have called obama’s strategy last night the rope-a-dope (he being the dope, i presume). but i knew muhammad ali, and obama is no muhammad ali. his motto is and has always been: float like a butterfly, sting like a…butterfly. this is all so tragic for the rest of us…

Hill dominated the ’08 Dem presidentiial primary debates; Romney channeled some of HIll’s wonkiness and it worked for him last night. He won the debate because he was better prepared. Hill won against O, too, but the lame streamers and Cheetos crowd asked us to move along because there was nothing to see there.

Hillary did GREAT in the debates — no question. But, it’s also true that No one – in any of the primary debates – got specific about the limits of Obama’s experience.

Which absolutely counts as not going for the jugular.

He went from never working a full time job (face it, not even the US Senate is a full time job, the way the rest of us have to work full time jobs) to being the President of the United States? You couldn’t put his life story in a novel without being laughed out of a publishers office. It’s that absurd.

Did you look at the Experience page on his website during the 2008 primaries? It was embarrassing. Yet in debate after debate the other candidates (including Hillary) would gently question his experience.

He NEVER had to face serious Debate Aggression before last night. I think it was good for all of us to see it.

In 2008 every question went to Hilary first. She would discuss any issue at length knowledgably. Thne Obama would say, well I agree with Hilary. It happened in every debate between the two of them. Obama has this rep for being super intellectual, but he’s just good at echoing smart people. And lecturing. It doesn’t matter if he knows what he’s saying or if he really knows best, he puts on his preacher voice and he just sounds like he knows best.

But as far as I can tell, he has no passion. He just doesn’t seem to care. He acts like it is beneath him to even be bothered with all this trying to convince the lessers that he is their savior. He behaved exactly the same in 2008 and I dont see why anyone expects him to change.

Just listen to him.Not as fast as ROmney, but it will still happen. He is itching to destroy medicare, medicaid and social security. He doesn’t care about the unemployed. If he did he wouldn;t be so hot to keep cutting unemployment and food stamps. He cannot even say the word poverty. People who lost their jobs are poor. They are not middle class anymore.

The only fun he gets anymore is bombing Pakistan with his rc bombs.It will be so much easier when he gets to start on us.

Exactly… both can’t wait to take us out.However the speed with which a candidate will send us down the river always is the determining factor…Barry plainly would send us faster than Hill( of course)Because he would not stand in the way as she would, so he was chosen over her .But simply not fighting them is not enough anymore

Mitt/Paul will do lots more than merely not stand in the way, they ramp the sell off to wrap speed. Mitten’s pick of Ryan was a master stoke in that regard . It told the top .999 % Mittens Inc was serious about destroying the social fabric and handing them the $$$. That’s all they want to hear

All the .99999 % has to do is remove the press prop and Obama will implode…What they have to decide is if the wars, old and new , would go better with Obama as Walmart Greeter in Chief…. as in no one will protest them and the .9999 % can chop away …..that might save him . He still gets the left to believe his wars are ” humanitarian “

That’s something I notice. NObody wants to talk about the poor or the lower class or whatever you want to call them? Us? But the Neauveau Poor (did I spell that right?) is the fastest growing class in America today and tomorrow.

(By the way, I make $34,800/year plus benefits. I think I am “middle class”. Do I class-flatter myself?)

I think Matt Stoller at Naked Capitalism summed up Obama’ failure in the debate very well:

“The reason Obama did poorly is simple. He is bad at governing America. He hasn’t solved the foreclosure crisis, the jobs crisis, the climate crisis, the energy crisis, the financial crisis, the debt crisis, the health care crisis, or really, anything. He can’t point to very much that Americans broadly like, except killing Bin Laden and the auto bailout. His second term agenda is to cut Social Security, Medicare, frack, cut corporate taxes, bust more teachers unions and pass more neoliberal trade agreements. He is proud of this record. So are his people. But he knows he can’t run on it because it’s unpopular, so instead, he presented himself as a nice likeable guy.

He frequently complimented Romney, agreed with him on most core policy arguments, and just generally avoided pointing out the many times Romney was lying. He didn’t bring up social issues like abortion, or really, any weak spots for Romney. He tried to present himself as a fighter for the middle class, but he doesn’t actually respect people he perceives have less strength than he does. Obama believes in pity for the middle class, not respect. Nor does Obama like Romney. So Obama came off passive and unpersuasive, making a case he didn’t believe in. It’s like George W. Bush, who couldn’t put two words together fluently unless he was talking death and destruction, and then he was a virtuoso rhetorician. Obama is at his best when he is talking about himself and his family, because that’s what he likes and believes in. That’s why his 2008 campaign worked, because it was all framed around Obama The Savior. It was mass narcissism (and even then, he only narrowly beat John McCain). If you’re wondering why Obama is a bad speaker now, where the old Obama went, just recognize that he’s only a great speaker when it’s all about him, because that’s where his interest is. The talent is there, the character, not.

Reading repeated references to Romney being a liar suggests that we’re all about as topped out on the Liar call as the racist one. To Business People (you know, the Entrepreneurs who “make” $250K) Romney’s statements are Round One of what’s on the Table and ready to negotiate with the Congress – he’s proven he’ll at least attempt to work WITH them. Obama’s so greedily copping all the MONEY on the table he’s never even looked seriously at proposals that represent beneficial projects. The Taxpayers’ money is just disappearing with nothing to show for it and NOBODY’s listening to the other side, just cavalierly dismissing them as liars. Good business people learn via interacting with their adversaries, that the statements are NOT lies, but expressions of Points of View which we need to make the effort to bring into focus. That’s called (excuse my good faith assertion) WORK and the only way the Economy gets out of the ditch is if we work. As I mentioned on another site: In the hills surrounding the Confluence of the Ohio, Allegheny and Monongahela, we learned how to drive out of a Ditch by “rocking it” as the Voters must do… put it in “D” and gas it, shift quickly to “R” – your strongest gear – gas it and repeat as necessary.

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